An Ice Cream Sandwich tablet that offers the basics, badly

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Product features

For

ICS on a budget

Reasonably snappy performance

Against

Limited on-board storage

Poor battery life

Sluggish

Plasticky build

The Arnova 10b G3 boasts Google's Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) OS right out of the box and offers a reasonably snappy performance. It will let you handle basic tasks like browsing the web and watching high-definition video. But, in all honesty, there are better tablets around for a similar price.

The Arnova 10b G3 has a 1GHz processor with 1GB of RAM which keeps it ticking along. It loaded up the browser quickly and we were happy to see apps open up quickly without much trouble. However, there's more than a hint of sluggishness when cruising through the operating system or swiping through homescreens.

The Arnova 10b G3 features a 10.1-inch display, with a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio and a 1,024 x 600 pixel resolution on a capacitive screen. This means you have to jab it firmly to make a connection and the overall usability really suffers as a result.

The larger problem is that decent tablets are now becoming affordable. The 32GB PlayBook can be had for £199, as can the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, and the forthcoming Google Nexus 7 8GB should launch at £160. All of these are much better products than the Arnova and represent a problem for budget tablet manufacturers.

Plastic build

The black plastic build of the Arnova doesn't help matters; neither does the thick, protruding bezel. At 628g, it's not the lightest tablet by a long way, but, to be fair, it's no brick either. And microSD compatibility does claim back some credibility, allowing you to extend the paltry 4GB of storage up to 32GB.

Any other ports are thin on the ground, there's only a MicroUSB option allowing you to connect to a laptop and swap over files. The Android OS keeps this easy and you can simply drag and drop content onto the tablet.

Annoyingly, the Arnova 10b G3 doesn't charge via USB and you must use the attached power cable to charge it up.

Any slight fondness we had for the Arnova was quickly dispelled by the battery life. We streamed HD video on a constant loop and the Arnova gave up after only 162 minutes. By comparison, the Scroll Extreme 9.7 Tablet PC lasted for 635 minutes.

An affordable alternative to premium tablets, the G3 will let you watch media, access a few choice apps and browse the web without much hassle. However, we can't recommend it highly.

There are too many other options now available that easily out-perform the Arnova 10b G3, and certain issues like the poor screen and lack of access to the Google Play app store let it down considerably.

Tech Specs

Product Type

Tablet

Flash Memory Capacity

4 GB

Processor Manufacturer

ARM

Wireless LAN

Yes

Optical Drive Type

No

Product Family

10b G3

Front Camera/Webcam

Yes

Operating System Platform

Android

Operating System

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich

Brand Name

Arnova

Form Factor

Slate

Processor Speed

1 GHz

Processor Type

Cortex A8

Screen Size

25.7 cm (10.1")

Screen Resolution

1024 x 600

Standard Memory

1 GB

Weight (Approximate)

630 g

Processor Core

Single-core (1 Core)

Memory Card Reader

Yes

Touchscreen

Yes

Display Screen Type

Active Matrix TFT Colour LCD

Wireless LAN Standard

IEEE 802.11b/g/n

Multi-touch Screen

Yes

Height

11.9 mm

Width

269.2 mm

Depth

149.9 mm

Screen Mode

WSVGA

Manufacturer

Archos Technology

Product Name

10b G3 Tablet Computer

Product Line

10b G3

Aspect Ratio

128:75

Manufacturer Part Number

502018

Manufacturer Website Address

http://www.archos.com

Marketing Information

Featuring a powerful 1GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, the ARNOVA 10b G3 runs Android 4.0 'Ice Cream Sandwich'1 tablet operating system. This smart combination between high performance hardware and intuitive software means that the ARNOVA 10b G3 gives an excellent tablet experience, whether it's using the full web (with flash support), watching full HD2 videos or using the thousands of Android apps and games available to download.

And still at that ARNOVA affordability.

Design

With it's 10.1 inch wide screen (16:9) display the ARNOVA 10b G3 is perfect for watching films and sharing that Android tablet experience with friends and family. Great for a tablet experience at home, the ARNOVA 10b G3 is just as comfortable on the go, weighing only 630 grams in its thin 12 mm casing.